No Light at the End of Your Tunnel? Here’s One…

No Light at the End of Your Tunnel? Here's One...

When the room is well lit, no one pays attention to the light. But when it feels like you’re in a dark tunnel, all it takes is that one little spark to get you headed in the right direction. Can’t seem to see yours? That’s okay, we’ll help you find it.

Quick Read:
Sometimes life feels so dark that light itself seems to be something of a fantasy. However, if you look within, you’ve got all the matches you need. You just need to redirect your attention, enjoy the results and do it again, over and over. Let’s find out how you can light up the night sky with your own special brand of fireworks.

See Where to Find YOUR Spark in the Dark.

At the root of every second of helplessness and despair is a longing for some form of control. It’s when we lose the control we thought we had that things get really dark. And that darkness can drown out some of the best parts of life. But there is hope and we’re going to show it to you, one step at a time.

Change Direction

Sometimes, when all your focus is on the shadows in front of you, you just need to turn around to see the light coming at you. And it can be blinding! Why? Because ALL of your focus was on the dark.

Let’s simplify things. Think back to a time when you injured a toe or maybe a finger. From that moment forward, it seems like you hit every piece of furniture in the room with the injured appendage, but not before you injured it. You might also notice similar injuries other people have that you hadn’t noticed before. And any irritants you had before that seem to fade away. Why is that?

Because you have all of your focus on the injured area. And it really is as simple as that. The more attention you give something negative, the more it makes its presence known. The good news is, the same is true of the good things in your life. To that end, it helps a lot if you can find somewhere pleasant to place your focus. When times are really hard, just try to direct your focus in a positive direction for just a few minutes a day. At least then you can have a bit of relief, even if it’s on a limited basis.

Light Your Own Fire

For about a year, Sharon, a fiercely independent woman, lost the use of her dominant arm. She cut her hair rather than ask anyone to help her brush it. She changed her diet to soup, because asking someone to cut her meat was too humiliating. One day, it dawned on Sharon that this might be a permanent issue, and she wondered what she could possibly due to alleviate the misery she felt, not having control over her own body.

Then, Sharon realized there was nothing wrong with her legs. She may not be able to eat or brush her hair with them, but she could certainly regain a sense of empowerment and independence if she simply started focusing on her legs instead of her arm. Soon enough, a regular routine of daily walking lead to a desire to eat healthier in order to maximize the benefits of walking. Because she paid more attention to her food choices, she accidentally improved the condition of her arm by eliminating some of the foods that were making it worse.

The pain and uselessness of Sharon’s arm didn’t change because she started focusing on her legs, but her perception of it did. So can yours.

When something is really weighing on you in life, you have to be careful not to put all of your focus on it. You don’t stare at one specific spot on a painting to see its beauty. Instead, you step back and take it in as a whole. Every artist knows that when there is an area that just doesn’t meet their approval, but can’t be fixed, the answer to the problem is to enhance another area so much that the flawed one doesn’t even stand out and might even go unnoticed altogether.

Now for the Fireworks

Okay, so now you know how to get your mind off the “stubbed toe,” even temporarily. Great, now what? Now, it’s time for the fireworks.

Before you found a way to take your attention off that toe, it was your whole world. Now you know how to redirect your attention and, in a way, minimize the pain in the toe. But there’s an even bigger picture.

You redirected your attention. You didn’t think you could do that at all, but found that you could. That’s huge. It means that you can do anything you set your mind to. Sure, you have to do it one step at a time, one realization at a time; hell, maybe one stubbed toe at a time.

But your brain was receiving signals that you were in pain and you were still able to direct your attention elsewhere.

Apply that methodology to other areas of your life. There may be things you can’t control, but for every one of those, there are thousands that you can control. And really, that’s the thing that keeps us sane. Don’t forget, it’s okay to ask for help when you need it. That, too, is within your control.